


A Smashed Vase

by Klioud



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Canon Compliant, Changing Tenses, Emotional Hurt, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright Spoilers, Gen, Hoshido | Birthright Route, Injury, Introspection, Marx | Xander & Elise Support Spoilers, Mentions of Death, Minor Violence, Pain, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Chapter 26, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7782070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klioud/pseuds/Klioud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthright. Pre-Chapter 26. Contains Spoilers.</p><p>
Xander rides out to meet Corrin in battle.</p>
<p>
  <em>It is not a new thought, but he is winded all the same. Dimly aware that somewhere glass is breaking, and a piece of it has lodged itself in his lungs. For it to surface now ― it's almost annihilating.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Smashed Vase

“Remain here,” he tells them. But Peri squints her reddened eyes at him and hiccups. Her face is splotched by tears and mascara. A glance to Laslow finds his features pulled taunt with barely bridled outrage. He expects protest. But in the silence that ensues, Xander only comes to notice that he is lingering.

Neither one moves to follow him when he passes through the great double doors out into the hall. They are silent as he begins to pull the doors shut. Xander cannot help but stare at them through the closing passage. Peri shudders. His other retainer meets his gaze evenly. Xander is struck by the horrible sense that this is wrong, and considers pushing the doors open again. But the thought lasts only a moment. His jaw locks as the doors clink shut, blocking them from view.

The silence lasts about as long. The three inches of solid oak is nothing between them, not when Peri lets out a horrifying wail unlike any he has heard ― and he knows that she has never been timid of her voice ― and her armour rings out an accompanying cry. But he turns his back on this. On them, he realizes sickly, and wants nothing more than for them to fling those doors open.

Glass shatters.

There is not a doubt in his mind that Peri has smashed a vase. That next she will tear down the twin tapestries in that room and pull the busts from their pedestals. She will rip them apart, see them ruined. He had always bet on that wildness in her, relied on that authenticity. Meanwhile, Laslow will watch, soundless. There will not be a single vase broken by his hand. But he will watch Peri come undone, be helpless to stop it ― unwilling to.

Xander knows how to stop her. They would sit opposite each other, and he would hold her hand while she shivered. Gently, he would squeeze her palm, always to the rhythm of a lullaby he thought he remembered. _Breathe,_ he would tell her, and she would. Just breathe.

Laslow tried to do this once with her, but she had complained about the song he hummed, and how he squeezed her hand too hard, or too gently, or just too _differently_ for her to be satisfied.

The racket does not reach the stables. It is shockingly quiet as he swings himself up into saddle. Hears his horse, Sieghart, snort quietly as he readjusts his feet in the stirrups. Hears glass breaking, again and again. Hears it scatter into hundreds of pieces, all sharp-edged and dangerous.

 _Ow._ He remembers. A glass sculpture dashed against the floor of _her_ room. A shallow cut across the meat of her thumb. Felicia trembling and noisy, hovering over the princess.

Xander squeezes his calves against Seighart's sides, asking him to trot.

He had sat upright on the floor, one knee bent and pulled toward his chest. The other leg had been straight, and she, lying perpendicular to him, had rested the back of her head against it. Back then she was small and so scared of the black stone walls and its matching skies. So he read to her stories that did not belong in Nohr, but _needed_ to.

It had not been enough.

He sinks into Seighart's steady, familiar gait. It is a lullaby of its own. Xander reminds himself to breathe, and tries to match the rhythm of his breath to Seighart's movements. Fails when he glances up at the sky overhead and knows this place is loveless.

It is not a new thought, but he is winded all the same. Dimly aware that somewhere glass is breaking, and a piece of it has lodged itself in his lungs. For it to surface now ― it's almost annihilating.

But the walls, cobblestone pavement, and the plum banners undulating against the black, starless sky do not protest. Nohr is loveless, has been so since the moment Queen Katerina had died. Since the morning they had erected that perverse statue over her grave, which shared only her appearance and nothing else. Since his visit that next misty morning, and he had tried to topple the monument with his own tiny hands.

 _She loved the kingdom of Nohr with all her heart,_ his father had said. _May she rest in peace._ And looking into the cold eyes of the statue, he could not understand how either could be true.

Xander tried to understand. Servants and nobles alike entreated him to remember, to love the country as she had. It seemed almost impossible, but then duty became synonymous with love, and for a split second, he thought he had found her again in that obligation.

A vase smashes against the floor, freeing its contents. He rides through a miserable, lonely place. Friendless. But Elise comes to mind, her exuberance, so quick to smile. So willing to clean the grime off a doll, look down at it warmly, and tell it, _It'll be okay, I'll fix you right up!_ Xander thinks of her childish books. _We hold hands, silly!_ And he knows now with complete certainty that, despite her foolishness and idealism, she should be the one to rule. Xander wants this like nothing else he has ever wanted before.

But he remembers, and Corrin had rolled over onto her stomach and forearms, looked up at him. Smiled. _Read it again?_

Corrin had never loved Nohr. It is a commonality that makes his stomach knot, that they should both look out at this kingdom and find it wanting. But he wishes that he could love it absolutely, even if just for a single day. Even if just for this hour. Then Seigfried would not be such a weight in his hands, dragging him down with a gravity not its own.

But Nohr needs him, just like Corrin had needed those stories, like all children do. And he needs it, needs what little it has to offer him, for him to withstand the coming battle.

He will leave the rest to Elise.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first AO3 submission! I wanted to explore the idea that Xander feels unfit to rule, and would have wanted to establish Elise as the next ruler. To me, it didn't feel like he loved Nohr itself. I also wanted to continue the "Seig" trend, so I decided he'd name his horse Seighart.
> 
> UPDATED 08/16/16: I corrected some errors that I had overlooked.
> 
> Thank you for your time!


End file.
